Tracing the Impact of Revolutionary Despair on a Dream of a Non-Gendered Society

Abstract Tracing the impact of revolutionary despair on Egyptian society, this study suggests that, although people who witnessed and participated in the 25th of January 2011 revolution in Egypt experienced a sense of collectivity and shared a non-gendered experience during the protests and sit-ins (temporary loss of gender identity in favour of becoming at one with the masses), the failure of the revolution to achieve its aims of social equality and welfare resulted in gender-based violence, a diminished sense of collectivity, heightened competition and the rise of individualism. Positioning the memoir ‘Al-Mubtasarūn’ (The Stillborn) by Egyptian communist and feminist Arwa Saleh, published in 1996, as the foundation of this study, I will compare, in an autoethnographic form, my perception of Egyptian society before and after the 2011 revolution vis-à-vis Arwa Saleh’s views following the dissolution of the Egyptian student movement of the 1970s. The comparison discusses the impact of revolutionary despair on the rise of the neoliberal psyche and gender-based violence.